A. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to billing systems and, more particularly, to a convergent billing system for processing bills for Competitive Local Exchange Carriers.
B. Description of the Related Art
Telecommunications traffic such as voice and data typically originates at one end of a communications channel that is maintained either by a Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) or a Competitive Access Provider (CAP). If the destination of such traffic is within the area served by the LEC or CAP, then that carrier or the combination of carriers transports the traffic over their circuits to an intended destination. However, if the destination of such traffic is outside the service area of the LEC or CAP, then the carrier or combination of carriers transports the traffic to an Inter-Exchange Carrier (IXC). In the United States, AT&T, MCI and Sprint are present examples of such IXCs. The IXC transports the traffic over its network to another LEC or CAP serving the intended destination of such traffic.
Recent changes in the telecommunications laws in the United States have caused companies to introduce “Competitive Local Exchange Carriers” or “CLECs”. Unlike the LECs that service traffic in a local exchange, CLECs do not necessarily service traffic. Instead, CLECs compete with the LECs by reselling the products and services of other companies. For example, CLECs resell telecommunications equipment such as mobile telephones and power adapters manufactured by other companies. CLECs also resell services such as voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, caller ID, long distance service of the IXCs, local exchange service of existing or “incumbent” LECs (ILECs), Internet service of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), wireless service of Wireless Service Providers (WSPs) handling paging and/or cellular traffic, or video service.
Although a CLEC has the advantage of providing a wide variety of products and services, and combinations of those products and services, it does so at a significant cost. The CLEC must coordinate its provisioning and billing operation with the many suppliers to provide and bill customers for selected products and services. For example, a customer may select products and services of several different suppliers, including, a company like GTE for local exchange service (in those areas where GTE is an ILEC), AT&T for long distance service, GTEINS for Internet service, Bell Atlantic for wireless cellular service, and Bell South for a cellular phone and power adapter. Each supplier may require different “provisioning data” from the CLEC to provide products and services. Additionally, certain suppliers may have specific format requirements to process requests from the CLEC. Consequently, the CLEC must determine the type of product or service selected by the customer, and forward the appropriate provisioning data in the appropriate format to the selected supplier.
Service providers also have different formats for the usage data that records customer usage. Each usage data record includes, for example, information on local calls within the exchange serviced by the ILEC, also known as Intra-LATA communications, or long-distance calls that use an IXC to connect with a destination serviced by another LEC or CAP, also known as Inter-LATA communications. For example, MCI's usage data record has a format different from that used by AT&T. Similarly, New Jersey Bell (a LEC) has yet another format for usage data records. Consequently, the CLEC's billing operation must accommodate the various usage data record formats to generate a bill for the usage.
Saville Systems of Massachusetts offers a “Convergent Billing Platform” that enables LECs to process usage data of specific LECs and IXCs and to generate bills including that data. It is considered “convergent” in the sense that the platform generates a single bill for the LEC to charge a customer for (i) recurring charges, such as a fee for the local residential telephone line, (ii) LEC usage, such as charges for Intra-LATA calls, and (iii) IXC usage, such as charges for Inter-LATA calls.
Because Saville designed its platform for the processing requirements of long distance companies, whose needs are very different from the requirements of a CLEC, Saville's platform could not handle all billing requirements of a CLEC. It could not process customer requests for products and services of different LECs or other companies, including those companies providing services traditionally provided by the LEC, such as voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, and caller ID. In other words, it was not possible with Saville's system for a customer to use different companies for each of these services. Instead, the customer had to use the LEC for these services.
Also, Saville's platform could not accommodate requests for products such as telephones and other telecommunications equipment. CLECs, however, are in a position to offer such products and, therefore, require the ability to bill customers for them.
Furthermore, Saville's platform was not capable of processing requests for packages of products and services and to offer discounts on such products and services based on the selection of a package(s). Because CLECs offer many products and services, which it typically purchases at a discount, it can package or bundle combinations of the products and services and offer the bundle to customers at a discount, as compared to the regular price for each product or service from a supplier. Accordingly, CLECs require a billing system that can accommodate product and service discounting of selected packages in a variety of configurations.
Consequently, CLECs were forced to develop their own customized billing system to handle these and other shortcomings of existing systems.